Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Burgoo???

Never heard of it until the other day.

Anyone make it and care to share a recipe, or tips?

Thanks,

Jason

Well now I've heard of it, I still don't know what it is?

According to Hank Shaw,

"What has carried on since the Civil War, however, is the concept of burgoo as a very thick stew — thick enough to stand your spoon in it. How you get there is more a matter of personal taste.

There are as many versions of burgoo as cooks throughout the Greater Burgoo Diaspora, which is basically Kentucky, southern Illinois and Indiana, as well as parts of Ohio River Valley."

Made it for the first time yesterday. Used Hank Shaws Kentucky burgoo recipe. Called for venison pheasant and rabbit or squirrel. I used venison chicken and rabbit. It has 3 meats potatoes corn lima beans onions corn garlic celery and carrots and some broth. Add Worcestershire at the end. I'll make it again. Squirrels would be better than rabbits I think but I didn't have any. I used venison round. Neck would have been better.

I have The Stag Cookbook, copywright 1922, which has this recipe for a Burgoo by a Dan Beard:

"Clean and dress the meat of a soft-shelled turtle, a painted turtle, a poker-dot turtle, or almost any other kind of turtle. Clean and dress a rabbit, a ruffled grouse, moose meat, elk meat, deer meat, sheep meat, in fact any sort of game. Cut your meat into pieces about the size of inch cubes. Save the bones, especially the marrow bones, to put in with the meat. Add some salt pork cut into cubes, if you have it.
If you have been thoughtful enough to supply your outfit with some ill-smelling, but palatable dry vegetables, they will add flavor to your burgoo, put all the material in a kettle, and fill the kettle half full of water. If you have beans and potatoes, do not put them in with the meat because they will go to the bottom and scorch. While the stuff you have already put in the kettle is boiling, or simmering, peel your onions and quarter them, scrape your carrots and slice them, peel your potatoes, cut them up into pieces - about inch cubes. After your caldron has commenced to boil dump in the fresh vegetables, they will cool off the water and kill the boil. Do not let it come to a boil again, but put it over a slow fire and allow it to simmer. There should always be enough water to cover the vegetables. A can of tomatoes will add greatly to the flavor. Use no sweet vegetables like beets or sweet potatoes. Put the salt and pepper in just before you take it off the fire. When the burgoo is done, strain it into tin cups. The liquid out of an olive bottle adds greatly to the flavor if you pour it in while the stew is cooking.. If you have such luxuries in camp as olives and lemons, a slice of lemon with an olive in each cup over which the liquid is poured makes a dish too good for any old king that ever lived.
The excellence of a burgoo depends upon two things, the materials you have of which to make it and the care you take in cooking it. No two burgoos are alike, and every one I ever tasted was mighty good. Civilized material such as can be purchased at the butcher shop and the vegetable store makes a good soup, but the "goo" isn't there. Consequently you cannot call it a burgoo."

Had Swedish neighbors by that name growing up.

Good folk! Never tried heir stew?

😆

It was passed down from one generation to the next.

Shotgun Red has a video of it on YouTube.

-Jake

Burgoo is a town in WV near where I was born. thake it for what its worth..

Waiter there's a heir in my stew.

Sounds similar to Brunswick stew

Friends have had several Burgoo parties. Everyone is to bring a bit of wild game if they have it, or some veggies. Ours will usually consist of rabbit, squirrel, deer, & doves. One year some crazy woman dumped 2 or 3 pounds of shrimp in. We thought great. Only when we started eating did we find out she hadn't peeled them.

Big cast iron kettle over an open fire. A big stir stick, sometimes a canoe paddle. Every attendee is to at one time, stir the pot. If you do, you get to put your name or initials on the stick. Your name not on the stick you eat last.

Drink beer, tell stories, drink beer, stir the pot, bot literally & figuratively, drink beer, eat. Take kettle off fire, build the fire up, stand around it, drink beer.

Be sure & take a 1 gallon ziploc or a big tupperware bowl with lid so you can take home leftovers.

Around my parts, all BBQ restaurants that are worth eating at serve burgoo. It's made with pork, chicken, and sometimes mutton barbeque, along with an assortment of vegetables, and tomato juice, as well as seasonings. It is very similar to Brunswick Stew. I've never eaten the wild game version, so can't comment on that. My wife has the recipe that was used by one of the most famous BBQ joints around here, and will make a batch every few years.

There are as many different recipes for it as there are any other kind of regional food, and everybody thinks their version is the best.

It is. I'd never heard of it burgoo until I started a thread about Brunswick stew. James was the only reply I got and he suggested burgoo so I made that instead.

Heard of it, seen it on TV and in ads over my lifetime never et it.

Well, I made it for the first time yesterday. I have to say, it came out much better than I expected and was actually really good. I loosely followed a recipe from Garden&Gun, which claims that it came from the Chef at Holly Hill Inn in Midway, KY. I don't know anything about any of them.

For meat, I used chicken thighs, beef, and some ham that I smoked. Also some sort of dry white bean, celery, onion, carrots, peas, corn, and potatoes. Recipe called for some A1 steak sauce, but I used a bit of homemade BBQ sauce.

Might not be authentic, if there is such a thing, but I'll definitely make it again.

That looks awesome!

Sure does.

Add some bacon and it would be good to go! 😜

Im in......looks great.